Thursday, April 14, 2011

Unsure

So much of our dating and relationship lives are filled with questions. We spend our days and nights with a person. We get to 'know' them and then we decide, in small increments, to commit to them. The whole while, we are asking ourselves ... Is this the person for me? Am I making a mistake if I commit to this person? Do we have enough in common? Am I ready to be with someone? Is he/she a good match for my friends?

We don't go through all of this for friends.  We meet someone and we gradually get to know them. They are allowed to have other friends without us questioning. They can have coffee with us and turn around and have dinner with another friend. Why not? That doesn't threaten our chances at becoming new friends. We don't question if they are going to get along with our friends, and if we do, we find out.  If they don't, we chill with them on the side. If the conflict is big enough, we take sides and choose our friends.  But, it's usually all gradual. It's hard to even remember the last person we were almost friends with.  No one makes a mental bank of all the people that were potential friends.  Failed romances, however. That is a different story. We all know the last person we talked to/dated/slept with that didn't quite work out.

From the moment I started talking to The Almost Boyfriend, I was unsure what I was doing.  I don't really know much about him. I only know the things he has told me. I have only spent a handful of days in his company and yet, we talk or text every day. Not one day has gone by since we met, that I haven't heard from him or contacted him. The talk is very mutual. We obviously want to talk to each other. There is no question there. That we get. And that is where the understanding ends.

We have the basics down. We are both confused and neither of us knows what we want. In all reality, that is a pretty clear indicator that we don't want each other.  We have both spent the past few months taking one step forward and two steps back. When one party is doing it, it's one thing. When both parties do it, it's kind of a mess. I will be perfectly honest, I have been doing a majority of it. Almost all of the questioning has been on me.

I question everything. I am not sure that I am ready to be talking to someone every day. I don't trust him. I don't want to get close to him, because I know he doesn't know what he wants. But, at the same time, I don't know that he is what I want. We don't have the same goals, we have a lot of differences. But, when was the last time I thought this much about a friend? Never. I don't meet cool women and men and ask myself what their goals are in life.  I don't worry about where they are going to be in 5 to 10 years. I just have a good time and get to know them. These questions are reserved for the ones that I both like, and let stick their penis in me. It's the penis and the like that opens up a possibility for the future.

This is where the problem comes in. The Future! That's the key.  Friends can be casual. But we put so much on romance, that we stand the chance of over-questioning things. Things that can just be fun and relaxed get over questioned on both sides. By the time one person relaxes on the questions, the other person kicks up and starts in on the internal interrogation.

I was never sure about The Maybe Boyfriend. I don't know what that means. I am fairly sure that he and I won't ever be more than we are now. That realization has made room to relax and just enjoy what we have for what it's worth. He doesn't have to be my future husband. He doesn't have to put me above everyone else. There is a chance that he will meet someone else, and we will just kind of drift away. And, that is fine. It's really no different than any other situation.

Anyone can leave a situation at any time. It doesn't matter if it's casual or if it's a marriage. It doesn't matter how much you question it or how much you doubt. It actually doesn't even matter how much you trust. But, distrust will surely kill any chance you have. Worry will never do any good. It will only break what you have down. It is all up to the two parties involved to communicate and want the same things. And the hope that that want will stay the same on both sides. At this point, the only thing that makes any sense is sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the person you are with, or not with.

3 comments:

  1. it's my first time reading and someone actually posted a link to your blog, under one of my more recent blog posts...
    I'm newly single after being in a relationship for 3 years and the whole "meeting new people" thing gave me a damn HEADACHE lol.
    But your perspective on dating had me thinking and I totally relate to you in this entry. The person who posted your link was anonymous, but I'm glad they did... ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brooklyn, that made my day. Thanks for commiserating. What's the link to your blog? Share it here and feel free to write about your headaches ... I would love to post a different perspective.

    ReplyDelete

About Me

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I am the product-child of the Women's Lib movement. I have a grade A education, a promising career and no immediate goal for children or a spouse. I will be 30 this year and I have spent many years in monogamous relationships. In and out of 1 to 2 year relationships, I always dated with the goal of meeting someone special. Most of the time I didn't date. Most of the time I found myself falling into relationship after relationship. These relationships were doomed to fail. They were all built on expectations that were, for me, unattainable. I love meeting new people. I find sex enjoyable and empowering and I am not happy when I am monogamous. So, after my last break-up, after taking some time to grieve, I decided to cut my societal puppet strings and get back in the game. I set out on a mission to spend the Summer of 2010 dating as many men as possible. My only initial criteria was attraction. My only limitation was - no love and no structured relationships. This is my date by date tale of what life can be like outside of the goals of relationships and love.